Sausage and Peppers, Easy and Affordable

One of my favorite things to eat in the summer months has to be sausage and peppers. This dish only takes about an hour to make, and keeps well over the week in the refrigerator. What makes this even better is the fact that this is one of the most affordable meals out there. The cost of ingredients per serving is only about $1.50, and in total comes out to around $15. That isn’t too bad considering it can feed you for an entire week. Let’s break down how to make this easy summer dish;

-What You Need-

• 2 Lbs. Sweet or Hot Italian Sausage(your preference, I prefer sweet)

• 6-8 Bell Peppers, Chopped Evenly

• 1-2 Large Vidalia Onion, Chopped Evenly

• About 1/4 Cup Soy Sauce

• 1-2 Tbsp. Olive Oil(regular olive oil, not extra virgin)

• Kosher Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

-Let’s Make It-

1) Let’s start off by caramelizing our onion. Add the olive oil to a deep pan, or Dutch oven to coat the bottom, turning the heat to medium/medium low. Add your chopped up onion to the pan, as well as a good pinch of salt, and stir the onions to coat. If the onions immediately start to sizzle, turn the heat down, because we are not trying to give them color, we want them to slowly caramelize, so we want to hear the onion but not to the point of a heavy sizzle.

2) Over the next 20-40 minutes, keep stirring the onions, while bringing the heat back and forth between medium and medium low. The onion will first start to go translucent, and then slowly get color. you can caramelize your onion as little or as much as you want. I prefer to caramelize my onions for sausage and peppers to a light to medium color.

3) Once your onions are nice and caramelized add your peppers to the pan, and drizzle some of the soy sauce into your pan and mix everything well. you can bring the heat to medium, and put the lid on the pan. at this time, start cooking your sausage. either toss the links onto the grill and get them nice and crispy, or add a touch of oil to a sauté pan, and cook them on the stove. either way, you want to brown the outside nicely and fully cook them through.

4) Take the lid off of your peppers and onions every few minutes and stir. Your veggies should be simmering in the excess liquid that they have sweat out(don’t worry, we are going to use this after). Make sure that your peppers and onions come to a point where the peppers are almost done and then drop the heat to low until you are ready to put your sausage in.

5) When your sausages are crispy on the outside, you have a couple of options. You could keep the sausages whole and toss them into your peppers and onions and simmer for 10 minutes, but what I prefer to do is slice the sausages up and add them to the peppers and onions(this allows the sausage slices to soak up a bunch of those veggie liquids, which are basically a concentrated pepper and onion stock). Bring the heat back up and start simmering everything, and place the lid on the pan.

6) After about ten minutes of simmering your sausage and peppers are ready to eat. Make sure to add soy sauce and mix well to taste, as well as grinding some fresh pepper into your sausage and peppers.

7) I like to have these a couple of different ways. You could place your peppers and onions on a hamburger roll, or torpedo roll, followed by topping them with your sausage. spoon some of the liquid out of the pan into a small dish to use just like a French dip sandwich. The other way is to have it over rice(I’ve been making saffron rice with brown rice, the method is the same as regular rice but adding some saffron to the water before cooking). Either way, plate it up and enjoy!

I hope this becomes one of your favorite “go to” and affordable meals for the week. I enjoy making this because sausage and peppers won’t break the bank, and it is absolutely delicious. You could use the liquids extracted from the peppers and onions as a delicious dip for sandwiches, and there is minimal prep and cleanup, seeing that you only have to use one or two pans. Come back for more every week, and As Always. Stay Happy. Stay Healthy. Stay Cooking.

Nobrega’s Kitchen LLC